Journeys Near and Far

Plan a Spa Vacation

Ahh... Relax at a Spa

Remember when the word "vacation" evoked images of getting away from it all?  What about rest and relaxation?  With today's technology, it's pretty tough to escape completely, but instead of racing from Point A to Point B or trying to count how many European countries you can pack into a ten day trip, why not spend your time off at a spa?  Spas have been around since Roman times, but in recent years the idea of spending a vacation soaking in mineral baths and having massages has become increasingly popular. 

A spa can be the entire focus of your trip or an added bonus.   Plan to spend a week or so at a destination spa like Arizona's Golden Door, Mexico's Rancho La Puerta, or the ritzy Canyon Ranch, and you'll come home feeling refreshed and revitalized. Or choose a resort, cruise ship or high-end hotel that offers a spa on its premises like Amelia Island Plantation.

The question is, how do you choose what type of spa getaway you want?  I've listed some spa resources below that should help you make your decision.

• Spa Finder  -  Spa Finder offers a tool to search for spas by zip code or to browse through special-interest categories such as spas appropriate for solo travelers or for families. 
• Spa Magazine - Search a selection of articles from Spa Magazine on their website, or search for a spa.  Better yet - subscribe to the magazine which will keep you up to date on spa trends and new destinations, as well as give you tips on how to bring the spa experience home.
• 100 Best Spas of the World, by Bernard Burt and Pamela Price.  This colorful guidebook for spa goers gives descriptions of spas and contact information for more than 30 countries.
• International Spa Association - This is actually the site for a membership organization, but as a consumer, you can use it to search for spas by location or type of facility, as well as learn more about spas.

While many spas tend to be an expensive vacation choice, you can always find deals off-season, midweek, or perhaps at resorts in foreign countries where the exchange rate is in your favor. 

Once you choose your spa getaway, don't hesitate to try out the more unusual services.  Try a chocolate massage at the Hotel Hershey in Pennsylvania, or watsu, a type of shiatsu administered in a pool at Amelia Island Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida.  Or why not visit the beautiful spa town of Montecatini in Tuscany, Italy, 30K east of Lucca, with its many healing spas?  Or how about Budapest, Hungary, where you can get a foot and leg massage for $1.50 at the Neo-Baroque Széchenyi Baths in City Park?

Can't get away?  Try a day spa!  Or a weekend visit.  You'll be hooked.

Note:  Visiting Montecatini, Italy?  The town has several streets lined by nice shops, just a short walk from Montecatini's spas and the train station, where you can hop a train to Florence.   And don't miss Montecatini Alto, a beautiful hilltop town that was the original Montecatini settlement, just a few hundred meters above the "new" town.  You'll love the views!

To learn more about Budapest and its spas, read Walking Around Budapest - A Solo Travel Report in Connecting:  Solo Travel News.

Photos:  Top photo courtesy of Rancho La Puerta; Watsu pool and massage photos courtesy of Amelia Island Plantation.

The Taste of Sorrento

Neapolitan Cuisine in the Land of the Lemon Groves

Mozzarella cheese, olives, pasta, Neapolitan pizza and gelato...  Limoncello made with lemons the size of grapefruits.   Sorrento, Italy offers a lot to tickle your taste buds.  A week there gave me time to savor the area's specialties while exploring the Amalfi coast and the Sorrentine Peninsula.  It also allowed me to enjoy a farmhouse lunch or two.

The city itself can be a bit chaotic, but the old streets are charming.  Founded as a resort town in the 1700s,  Sorrento was a place Casanova and Goethe liked to visit.

In this city of lemon and orange groves, you don't  have to go far to find a fabulous restaurant where you can sample the area's cuisine.  One of my favorites?  Ristorante Tasso, named after a famous poet born in Sorrento who is well known in Italian literature.

The lemons in Sorrento are huge, as you can see from this photo of my friend, Bea, displaying one at a local market.  These lemons are used to make limoncello, a refreshing lemon liqueur that delivers quite a kick.  Many of the shops in Sorrento also sell limoncello in a creamy version, which I preferred as it was less potent.  It also comes in other flavors, such as strawberry (my favorite) and melon. 

Of course, there's always the pasta!   During our last evening at the Hotel Cesare Augusto, Patty, a local woman with a talent for cooking, visited us at the hotel's restaurant and demonstrated how to make three delectable pasta dishes.  She also gave us the recipes .  Would you like to try them, too?  Savor a taste of  Sorrento without leaving home.  Download Festa_della_Pasta.doc.  And if you really want to go all out, there are more Sorrentine recipes on the Sorrento Tourism site.

Buon Appetito!

Recipes courtesy of Grand Circle Travel.   Photo of the original Neapolitan pizza by  Photographer Carlo Alfaro, courtesy of Sorrento Tourism.

Back from Italy!

I just returned from traveling in Italy -- my first time ever to visit this beautiful country!  I traveled with a tour company called Grand Circle Travel to get a good overview of the country, and plan to return on my own to see it in more depth.   If you like tours I highly recommend Grand Circle;  they give you a lot of value for your money and they have a multitude of discovery programs that other tour companies do not, such as visiting local schools, attending cooking demonstrations,  language classes, and on this trip, a talk by an American woman who married an Italian man and moved to Italy, with details on how she adapted to life there.  I traveled with Grand Circle to India and Turkey also, and have only good things to say about them!  They cater to seniors but quite a few of us who traveled with them were younger on this trip.

Grand Circle's tour leaders are remarkable, and they often surprise you with special events.  For example, one evening in Montecatini our guides Fernanda and Emy set up a showing of the movie Tea With Mussolini (1999); it took place in San Gimignano which we had visited the day before. 

On this trip we visited Rome then Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, taking a drive along the rugged and absolutely gorgeous shoreline to Positano, then Amalfi, and then up the mountain to Ravello.  I think if I could buy a house in Italy the Amalfi Coast is where it would be!  We also spent some time exploring Sorrento, and the ruins at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia, (the towns destroyed by the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius), as well as Naples and its Archaeological Museum.

From there, we drove up to Montecatini, a well-to-do spa town in Tuscany.  Florence, Sienna, San Gimignano (known as "The Town of Towers", and Lucca were all fascinating.  Pisa was a bit touristy, but still, it was fun to see the Leaning Tower...

The food in Italy was the best I've ever had.  Now I just have to work it all off!  I'll write more about these places later.  Until then, ciao ciao!